Week 19 - Jeremiah 3-5, John 18 (May 7 - 13)

Notes

Jeremiah 4: Circumcision of the Heart

Old Testament Israelites considered physical circumcision of males to be the primary indicator of their national identity. The practice of Circumcision was not unheard of in the Ancient Near East, as noted here:

Circumcision was not unique to Israel, aas iconographic evidence has been found in Egypt. But the meaning behind it was unique, as it was a sign that the people of Israel belonged to Yahweh. Regular circumcision symbolically ut the organ of generation under the control of Yahweh as a reminder of his covenant promise to make Israel a great nation. The concept of circumcision of the heart symbolically (here in Jeremiah 4) put the organ of the will under the control of Yahweh as a recognition of the obligation to the law

IVP Bible Backgrounds Commentary, Walton, Matthews, & Chivalas, p. 645

As mentioned above, God wants circumcision to be more than a marker of identity for the Israelites:

Jeremiah 4:4 Circumcise yourselves to the Lord,
circumcise your hearts,
you people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,

God wants their whole being marked as belonging to Him through obedience. This is not the first time this teaching has appeared in scripture ( Deuteronomy 30) and it will not be the last:

Romans 2:28 A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. 29 No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God.

Jeremiah 4: The Mourning Prophet

Jeremiah has a reputation among the prophets as “the mourning prophet.” More here than elsewhere you get to read how difficult both the message is that Jeremiah has to deliver (doom at the hand of the Babylonians) and the social/societal consequences of his work are for the prophet. Sometimes this sadness clearly belongs to the mouth of Jeremiah, but often this sadness is built into God’s own message through Isaiah like here in Jeremiah 4:

19 Oh, my anguish, my anguish!
    I writhe in pain.
Oh, the agony of my heart!
    My heart pounds within me,
    I cannot keep silent.
For I have heard the sound of the trumpet;
    I have heard the battle cry.

Jeremiah 5: Jeremiah’s scavenger hunt

The prophet is given an assignment by God in chapter 5:

1 “Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem,
    look around and consider,
    search through her squares.
If you can find but one person
    who deals honestly and seeks the truth,
    I will forgive this city.

God gives him this task to make the point here that there is no one who is doing so. God’s judgment is coming on Judah (the nation for which Jerusalem is the capital) partly because of their dishonest and immoral behavior. This task, given to Jeremiah in chapter 5, echoes the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah where Abraham serves as the intermediary. The Lord says there

22 “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”

Then Abraham pleads for God to spare the city if he can find a certain number of righteous people there. The number starts at 50. Abraham wants God to spare the city if he can find 50 righteous people there. But he must then think that the number is too high because he keeps bringing the number down incrementally until he gets God to agree to not destroy the city if just 10 righteous people are found. Even with that agreement in place, in the next chapter, Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed.

This contrasting story in Jeremiah 5 is telling. For not being able to produce just 10 righteous people, Sodom was destroyed. What will become of Jerusalem where Jeremiah can not find one?

John 18: which high priest

There is more than one high priest in the account of Jesus trial. I have found an article that does a good job of describing the dynamic/relationship of Anna and Caiaphas, and why Jesus appeared before both of them before he was crucified. you can read it here

Here is a picture of the actual ossuary being described. It is housed in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/664-caiaphas-official-at-the-trial-of-jesus

here is a fun archaeological note from the bottom of the article:

In 1990, just south of Jerusalem, a Jewish burial cave was accidentally discovered. When the cave was finally entered, archaeologists found several limestone ossuaries (boxes containing bones). One of these contained the remnants of several persons, including those of a man about sixty years of age. The box was elaborately decorated, suggesting that it housed the remains of someone important.
On the exterior were these words, “Joseph, son of Caiaphas,” or, as scholars suggest the meaning may be, “Joseph of the family of Caiaphas.” “Caiaphas” was apparently a family nickname. According to Josephus, the high priest who succeeded Annas was “Joseph Caiaphas” (Antiquities, 18.2.2; 18.4.3).
Ronny Reich, of the Israel Antiquities Authority, suggests that these bones are “in all probability” the bones of that same high priest who prosecuted Jesus Christ (30). Now, he awaits judgment!

Luke 18: Jesus before Pilate and the timins of the passover

Luke 18:28 Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover.

Roman officials began meeting the public (especially their *clients) at daybreak and finished by noon; “early” is no exaggeration, and here may mean about 6 a.m. Although visiting officials were often swamped with plaintiffs, the priestly aristocracy, who controlled Judea for the Romans, would be able to secure an audience with him on short notice. Clamoring before *Pilate in large numbers was usually effective, because a riot was the last thing he wanted. The “Praetorium” (NASB) here was Herod the Great’s old “palace” (NIV), used by the Roman prefect when he came to Jerusalem from Caesarea during the feasts. (It was not, as some earlier commentators thought, the Fortress Antonia on the Temple Mount, where the usual Roman garrison was stationed.) He came precisely to ensure that order was maintained during the feasts, when Jerusalem was overcrowded and riots were most apt to break out. That observant Jews (including the priestly aristocracy) would not enter this palace, lest they be defiled and thus unable to eat the Passover, fits Jewish practice. *Gentile residences were considered ritually impure, primarily because of the association with idolatry (which Pilate certainly practiced). (That priestly aristocrats cared about purity is clear archaeologically from the ritual baths common in their homes.) Their fidelity to purity regulations ironically highlights the corrupt leaders’ failure to observe legal propriety in the context. A possible conflict with the other Gospels at this point has led to considerable debate as to when the Passover described in the Gospel passion narratives occurred. According to Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus had already eaten the Passover with his disciples this night; whereas according to John, the priests plan to eat it the following night. Of the many explanations for the apparent discrepancy, the two most prominent are probably these: (1) Several Jewish groups had different calendars and did not celebrate Passover on the same day. A dispute about when the month had begun (based on the appearance of the new moon) would also affect when the feast would be eaten. Some scholars have suggested that Jesus’ disciples celebrated it a day early, thus without a lamb slaughtered slaughtered in the temple. (2) Either John or the other Gospels—probably John—is making a symbolic point (John stresses that Jesus is the Passover lamb; cf. 19:14, 36; 1 Cor 5:7). Later Jewish tradition also reports that Jesus was crucified on Passover, but this report could be based on the approximate time in earlier tradition. John’s language would not technically be incorrect in any case in the present verse, since many used “Passover” loosely for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which immediately followed; nevertheless, “eat the Passover” is a very odd way to speak of eating the bread during the rest of the feast (cf. also 13:1).

Keener, Craig S.. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (p. 300). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

Joel NielsenMay 5, 2023